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attacking Iraq. Feb. '03. (NYT 56%, others 54-55%.) That would be a landslide in a presidential election. And some of us think it was.
The problem for the war profiteers at that time was how to prevent that big 56% majority against the war--bolstered by no find of WMDs in Iraq, and later by graphic reports of torture (63% opposed to torture "under any circumstances" - May '04), from achieving a candidate who truly represented them--or, as it turned out, at least someone who was not Bush--and electing that person to the White House. But they had been hard at work on this problem--the fast-tracking of electronic voting machines all over the country, run on "trade secret," proprietary programming code, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls--the infamous "Help America Vote for Bush" Act of 2002.)
Now it's 70% opposed to this illegal, unjustified, heinous war and its perpetrators. Big problem! And the people are getting onto the voting machine scam--50% of them in some places voting by Absentee Ballot in an effort to get around the rigged electronics, and coming out in droves to outvote the machines, in some cases, in '06. Also, "50 state" strategy, and much, much greater monitoring of riggable and rigged vote counting than in 2004. Red flags, in FL-13, etc. How to keep the American people from achieving peace?
In 1964, they did it by lying. They played LBJ as the "Peace candidate." I know. I voted for him for that reason. 2 million deaths later, you gotta figure I was had. (Nixon in there somewhere saying, "peace with honor." That's what got the second million slaughtered.)
Ah, me. Beware of politicians bearing peace.
I think they (the war profiteers who control our government) need to be careful, at this point. If they push their cash cow too far, we might actually restore transparent vote counting and start cutting the military budget down to a true defensive posture. (No more wars of choice!). They gotta look all peacey for a time, withdraw the troops "over the horizon", but keep the gunboats in place, and throw us some sops, like a minimum wage hike, and work up to a Draft with a WC Democrat in the White House (WC=War/Corporate)--if the country don't go crash-boom in the meantime. (Think China and Saudi Arabia will keep us afloat? Dunno. Long as we're still able to buy their sweatshop products and their oil, I guess.)
I wouldn't ask a true peace-minded candidate to run for president, at this time. They would just get assassinated.* And, anyway, until we get these Bushite e-voting corps out of our system, we can't even get a good presidential candidate nominated, let alone elected. We're likely going to have to work with a WC Democrat, to gradually, with a lot of hard work and persistence, restore democracy here. If we're lucky, we'll get Al Gore as a candidate--no peacenik, but a good guy, passionately into law-abiding government, and with a positive vision for economic recovery and saving the planet, who hasn't stepped too hard on oil/war/corporate profiteer toes. I think he's orders of magnitude above Hillary in sincerity and gravitas. I think he will be responsive to the American people, even if he doesn't have to be--on war and other issues--and has the ability to overcome the Diebold/ES&S 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" (--a significant handicap for any decent candidate--and one that I can't see any of them overcoming except Gore). Unlike Hillary, I don't think he would fall for a "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incident with Iran. Also, I think he will "divide and conquer" the multinational corporations--some for, some against--and thus deflect their power to put major war criminals and thieves in the White House. I think it will be a lucky break for the American people if he decides to run, or gets drafted by activists. But he may have gotten too far from Toxic City (DC) to want to go back.
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*(Don't call me paranoid. I saw two of them go down to bullets, within five years of each other. JFK, who stopped the CIA/Miami Mafia invasion Cuba, headed off a nuclear holocaust with Russia, and signed Executive Orders withdrawing U.S. military "advisers" from Vietnam just before he was killed, and his brother, RFK, who turned against the Vietnam War, was running for president to stop it, and was winning. Bang-bang, shoot-shoot.)
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